post: gif coloring tutorial
An anon on tumblr asked me to explain how I color gifs.
Getting started on these early because lol there are a lot of them. Let me just start by saying that I am really, really new to the gif-making world. I only just figured out how they work (I'm not going to explain that here, just the coloring, because there are plenty of tutorials on the process and it works differently for everyone), and I still haven't completely refined my methods to where I can make a colored, 500px gif that's under tumblr's 500kb size limit. In fact, that Nathan one is one of the only full-sized, colored gifs I have. But I'll explain my process and the ways in which I cheat/succumb to the (really stupid) size limit.
I'll explain the Nathan one first. It's relatively simple to color once you know how to make the gif itself and if you have a basic knowledge of Photoshop. The big trick to coloring gifs is: try to achieve the coloring you want using as few layers as possible. The more layers you have, the bigger your file size. The second thing is that most of the frames should have a similar coloring to achieve a smaller size, since to reduce the size you have to reduce the number of colors displayed in the image.
The best way I've found to do this is by using a gradient map (found in the adjustments menu) set to soft light. The gradient I used in the Nathan gif goes from #9d0c09 to #f78806 to #f7c604 and is probably my favorite for achieving warm, red-yellow-orange tones. Now, none of the cap layers in the gif are screened/adjusted in any way, so after the gradient map layer you have to try and brighten up the image to your satisfaction using brightness/contrast (or other tools, but I only use brightness/contrast for the most part). I tend to up the brightness pretty high (50-80, depending on the cap) and the contrast to a bit lower than that (40-60), which makes the cap look as if you've screened and softlight-ed like you would on a non-animated graphic.
Considering I have such a hard time fitting within the size limit if I have a gif that's fairly tall in addition to the 500px width, I have a couple things I do to reduce the size, the most simple of which is to make the gif black and white.
Black and white gifs are especially useful if you have a lot of frames in a file, if your image is large, or if your frames vary in color. They also leave more room for further editing because the colors are fewer which Photoshop likes. I don't like the black and white adjustment in Photoshop - it tends to make the image flat and loses some of the shadows and contrast. Instead, I put a black to white gradient map over all the layers set to normal. This takes away the color in the image without deteriorating the value, which is really nice. Another thing that works well to add more depth to a gif when you have extra room for layers is a gradient layer (NOT a gradient map, just a layer that looks like this) set to soft light over the whole thing. I usually use white to black with white on the top, but you can do whatever you want.
Another way to reduce the size is by adding a border to your gif.
Just crop your initial gif to 500px and then crop it again, this time stretching the box outside the images so that an equal amount of free space is left on either side, and then add a layer beneath all the frame layers filled with whatever color you want the border to be. This allows for more frames, more colors, and more layers.
Aaaaand, that's pretty much it! As you can see, I don't have a special way to color that lets me stay inside the 500kb limit, so if anyone has any magical tips for that, let me know. Also, I don't know how to put multiple gifs in the same image, much less have a different coloring on all of them, so.
